Britain | WarSclerotic | Page 11

Archive for the ‘Britain’ category

Will America Follow Britain further Into, or away from, the Abyss?

May 14, 2016

Will America Follow Britain further Into, or away from, the Abyss? Dan Miller’s Blog, May 14, 2016

(The views expressed in this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

The Muslim invasion is changing European and British demographics to the degree that some countries will soon have Muslim majorities. Will America follow Europe? What about our Publican and Demorat elites? Will we reject them and the unelected bureaucrats they have spawned and empowered?

America needs to vote for her own version of Brexit this November.

British and European Demographics

Paul Weston is the vile “Islamophobe” who dared to read — aloud and in public — a passage from a book written by another vile “Islamophobe,” Winston Churchill, a couple of years ago. For that, he (Weston, not Winston) was arrested.

So what if Weston spoke accurately? He offended Muslims and that can’t be tolerated. Besides, Britain is terribly “racist” even though Islam is not a race.

Meanwhile, London’s East End is losing its native population and the place looks “less like a British city, more like Baghdad.”

The European Union and Britain

Currently, Mr. Weston of the Liberty GB Party is campaigning for Britain to leave the Europen Union, a force for unrequited love, charity and destruction. So is Nigel Farge of UKIP.

Here’s a long video about the EU and why Britain should leave it. It’s over an hour long but well worth watching. It’s principally about economics, the destructive power the EU has given unaccountable bureaucrats and the stifling of democracy.

As you watch and listen, please consider the similarities and differences between the EU and governance of, by and for the Publican and Demorat Establishment in America. Both have empowered and continue to expand unelected bureaucracies.

I was disappointed that the video does not deal with the immigration problem which will continue to plague Britain if she remains in the EU. Perhaps the topic was seen as likely to displease Britain’s already substantial Muslim population and prompt them to vote to remain in the EU. Remember, London just elected its first Muslim mayor.

Here’s another “Islamophobic” EUophobe:

Democracy and self-governance are seen by far too many as absurdly old fashioned. In Obama’s America, where would we be if governance were taken away from our betters in the Publican and Demorat Establishment and returned to the vulgarian little people? Do we need great Establishment intellects to think for us so that we don’t have to do it ourselves? The vulgarian dummies living in EU member states haven’t had to think for years. Now, with the upcoming referendum, those in Britain l have a chance to do so. We will have a chance this November.

Obama has told the citizens of once-great Britain that membership in the EU is economically and otherwise good for them — perhaps even as good as His presidency has been for citizens of His America. Many disagree with “the smartest person in any room;” those in Obama’s America who do may even elect Vulgarian-in-Chief Donald Trump as President shortly after citizens of Britain who cherish self-governance may vote to exit the EU.

Conclusions

America does not yet have the same Muslim demographic problems as Europe or Britain. Unless we halt or at least reduce Islamic immigration and cease to subsidize it we will eventually. One way to minimize the problem is to get rid of the politically correct “Islamophobia” nonsense and speak of Islam as it is rather than as though it were a benign unicorn.

The elites of the Publican and Demorat establishment are a big part if the problem. Just as Britain seems to be moving toward leaving the EU, we need to diminish the power of our own elected elites by electing “vulgarians” to replace them. We also need to reduce the very substantial power of the masses of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats they have empowered. There is no need to replace them.

Categories: 2016 elections, BREXIT, Britain, Donald Trump, European Union, Freedom of Expression, Illegal immigration, Islam in America, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic jihad, Islamisation, Islamophobia, London, Multiculturalism, Nigel Farge, Obama's America, Paul Weston, Political correctness, Political establishments
Tags: BREXIT, Britain, Donald Trump, European Union, freedom of expression, Illegal immigration, Islam in America, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic Jihad, Islamisation, Islamophobia, London, Multiculturalism, Nigel Farge, Obama's America, Paul Weston, Political correctness, Political establishments

Comments: Be the first to comment

Britain’s Muddled Priorities?

May 14, 2016

Britain’s Muddled Priorities? Gatestone Institute, Douglas Murray, May 14, 2016

♦ On the one hand, the overwhelming cause of our current security problems is Islamist terror. It is the number one cause of concern to our police, intelligence services and everybody else with the nation’s security at heart. The public expects to be protected from such terror and expects that protection to come from that security establishment.

♦ Yet all the time, a vocal lobby of Muslim and non-Muslim figures tries to pretend that the threat is not what it is, or that an attempt to depict any and all efforts to protect the country — even one phrase said by one actor in one simulated attack scenario – is some terrible crime of bigotry.

♦ An actor saying “Allahu Akbar” in a simulated terror attack may be offensive to somebody’s religion. But if so, what is more offensive to their religion: one actor saying “Allahu Akbar” as part of a simulation, or countless Muslims around the world shouting the same phrase before real attacks in real time?

Sometimes you can see a whole society’s self-delusion in under a minute. Consider a single minute that occurred in Britain this week.

On Monday night, Greater Manchester Police staged a pre-prepared mock terrorist attack in a Manchester shopping centre in order to test emergency responses capabilities, readiness and response times. At one stage, an actor playing a suicide bomber burst through a doorway in a crowded part of the shopping centre and detonated a fake device.

It turned out that the actor pretending to be a suicide bomber had shouted the words “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is Greatest”) before the simulated attack. This may have helped make the simulation more realistic, but it had an immediate backlash. Nobody complained about the simulated attacks. What disturbed some people was the simulation of the signature Islamist sign-off.

1596

A video still from the mock terrorist attack staged on May 9, 2016 by the police in Manchester, England.

Within hours, the simulated moral outrage machine, social media, began deploring the outrageousness of the exercise. Soon, community spokesmen were on the airwaves, deploring the use of the crucial phrase. Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan said,

“[O]n reflection, we acknowledge that it was unacceptable to use this religious phrase immediately before the mock suicide bombing, which so vocally linked this exercise with Islam. We recognise and apologise for the offence that this has caused.”

Greater Manchester’s police and crime commissioner, Tony Lloyd, tried to explain that,

“it is frustrating the operation has been marred by the ill-judged, unnecessary and unacceptable decision by organisers to have those playing the parts of terrorists to shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ before setting off their fake bombs. It didn’t add anything to the event, but has the potential to undermine the great community relations we have in Greater Manchester.”

By now, most of the national papers and the 24-hour news programs were all over the story. That is where the revealing minute happened. On Sky News, interviewer Kay Burley was interviewing one Jahangir Mohammed, who was introduced as a “community worker.” Mr. Mohammed spent some time commenting:

“Like everything, there’s a securitised approach to these things and that’s necessary in training like this. But I think sometimes there’s also a need for them to have a bit of religious and cultural context when they’re doing training like this in a wider setting about the possible implications and the effects on wider society and communities within that society.”

Ms. Burley thanked Mr. Mohammed for his illuminating contribution and went onto the next news item. In other main stories, she said,

“One man has died, three others injured after a knife attack at a train station near Munich. The attacker — a 27-year-old German — shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ according to witnesses, before stabbing people at the station in Grafing. He was overpowered at the scene and is now in custody.”

The combination of these two news stories took about one minute.

Whether or not the Grafing attacker turns out to be a non-Muslim with psychiatric issues, as the press is currently suggesting, or an Islamist with or without such issues, this single minute of broadcast footage says so much about the problem that societies such as Britain’s are now in.

On the one hand, the overwhelming cause of our current security problems is Islamist terror. It is the number one cause of concern to our police, intelligence services and everybody else with the nation’s security at heart. The public expects to be protected from such terror and expects that protection to come from that security establishment. Yet all the time, a vocal lobby of Muslim and non-Muslim figures tries to pretend that the threat is not what it is, or that an attempt to depict any and all efforts to protect the country — even one phrase said by one actor in one simulated attack scenario — is some terrible crime of bigotry.

Of course, there would have been no social media backlash and no swift apology from the Greater Manchester Police if the terrorist simulation had involved a “far-right” terrorist. But there is always a backlash if the scenario reflects the real security threat that all our societies are facing. This is yet another occasion in which the general public’s view of people’s priorities is legitimately raised. Why would any Muslim or anyone else genuinely opposed to terror object to the realistic simulation of such an event? One can see, of course, that it may be offensive to somebody’s religion. But if so, what is more offensive to their religion: one actor saying “Allahu Akbar” as part of one simulation, or countless Muslims around the world shouting the same phrase before real attacks in real time?

If I were a Muslim, I would spend every minute of my waking life trying to persuade my co-religionists not to kill people right after shouting about my Allah. I do not think I would bother for a second if a police force, trying to keep people safe, chose realistically to simulate the behaviour of my co-religionists. It is a matter of priorities, and across Britain and many other countries in the world today, our priorities are now seriously awry.

Categories: Britain, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic jihad, Islamisation, Islamophobia
Tags: Britain, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic Jihad, Islamisation, Islamophobia

Comments: 1 Comment

Manchester Police Apologize for “Allahu Akbar”

May 11, 2016

Manchester Police Apologize for “Allahu Akbar” Power Line, John Hinderaker, May 11, 2016

In Manchester, England, police staged a mock suicide bombing attack at a shopping center as part of a training exercise. The pretend bomber yelled “Alluhu Akbar” just before he detonated his mock explosives–a touch of verisimilitude appropriate to the exercise. But it prompted a complaint, followed by an apology:

Police in Manchester, England has issued an apology, after a suicide bombing “simulation” which involved an actor shouting the Islamic phrase “Allahu Akbar” (God is greater) before detonating mock explosives.

The simulated terror attack was held at one of the UK’s largest shopping centers, the Old Trafford Centre, and was part of a counter-terrorism training drill preparing for a possible Paris-style assault by jihadist terrorists.

However, police later apologized for “linking Islam” with terrorism.

The drill had been criticized by some politicians and Muslim activists, including The Community Safety Forum, an anti-Islamophobia organization.

“This sort of thing panders to stereotypes and further divides us. It will increase anti-Muslim hate crime,” the group claimed.

Anti-Muslim hate crimes being, of course, the issue that is currently roiling Europe. Here is the Manchester Police Department’s statement:

“For the past 24 hours, GMP (Greater Manchester Police), along with other agencies, has been hosting a counter-terrorism training exercise based at the Trafford Centre, which began with a mock suicide bomber detonating a bomb inside the shopping centre,” police spokesman Gary Shewan said.

“It is a necessity for agencies, including the police, to train and prepare using exercises such as this, so that we would be in the best possible position to respond in the event that the unthinkable happened and an attack took place.”

“The scenario for this exercise is based on a suicide attack by an extremist Daesh-style organisation,” he continued, using the Arabic term for the ISIS terrorist group, “and the scenario writers have centred the circumstances around previous similar attacks of this nature, mirroring details of past events to make the situation as real life as possible for all of those involved.

“However, on reflection, we acknowledge that it was unacceptable to use this religious phrase immediately before the mock suicide bombing, which so vocally linked this exercise with Islam. We recognise and apologise for the offence that this has caused.”

“Linking” Islamic terrorism to Islam is now an offense punishable by career derailment.

So, what is the actor carrying out a mock suicide bombing supposed to yell before he pulls the cord? Excelsior? Geronimo? (No, wait, never mind.) Take that, you Limeys? I suppose he had best maintain a discreet silence.

Reality eventually intrudes:

Also on Tuesday, Italian police revealed that two Afghan nationals arrested in the southern Italian city of Bari were part of an Islamist terror cell linked to ISIS, which was plotting attacks in both Italy and Britain.

Three other cell members are still at large, two of whom are believed to have returned to Afghanistan.

Fortunately, the terror attacks planned by this stall have been forestalled, at least for now. But if they had been carried out, you can be sure they would have been preceded by cries of “Allahu Akbar.”

fake-suicide-bomber

The Manchester suicide bombing exercise

Categories: Britain, Islamic jihad, Islamisation, Islamophobia, Political correctness
Tags: Britain, Islamic Jihad, Islamisation, Islamophobia, Political correctness

Comments: Be the first to comment

Pro-Palestinians Muslims in Britain attack people for drinking beer while shouting “Free Palestine”

May 10, 2016

Pro-Palestinians Muslims in Britain attack people for drinking beer while shouting “Free Palestine” LiveLeak Channel, May 8, 2016

Categories: Britain, Islamic tolerance, Pro Palestinians
Tags: Britain, Islamic tolerance, Pro Palestinians

Comments: Be the first to comment

New UK campaign – it’s ‘payback time’ for the EU

May 9, 2016

New UK campaign – it’s ‘payback time’ for the EU, Israel National News, Ari Yashar, May 9, 2016

As the UK is poised ahead of a fateful vote on whether or not to remain in the EU, a group of concerned British ex-pats and Israelis have launched a new “Support Israel-Leave Europe” campaign to get Britain out of the EU and stop helping its efforts against the Jewish state.

The campaign, which is funded by Jewish land rights watchdog Regavim and whose website can be viewed here, has launched a humorous video of Hamas terrorists calling on the UK to stay in the EU to continue helping fund the terrorists in their fight against Israel.

Regavim’s work on the project comes amid their legal battle against the EU over its funding of illegal Arab settlements in Area C, the region in Judea and Samaria designated as being under full Israeli control by the 1994 Oslo Accords and which contains all the Jewish residents. Area A is under complete Arab control and only security in Area B is controlled by Israel.

The new “Support Israel-Leave Europe” campaign presents several major reasons why those who support the Jewish state should want to see Britain leave and consequently weaken the EU.

Firstly, the EU has paid millions in aid money to the Palestinians, a large portion of which is going directly to pay the salaries of terrorist murderers.

Another strike against the EU is its funding of illegal Arab buildings in Area C, as it has built over 1,000 structures in the region to create a de-facto state of “Palestine” there.

The campaign also argues the EU’s recent campaign to label all Jewish products made in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights is a form of state-sponsored anti-Semitism, and finally it notes that the EU provides huge budgets for hundreds of virulently anti-Israeli NGOs to support their work delegitimizing Israel and conducting lawfare against it.

“For decades the European Union has meddled in Israeli affairs to the detriment of the Jewish State, for thousands of Israel supporters in the United Kingdom and ex-pats around the globe, it’s pay back time,” said Ari Briggs, Regavim’s international director.

“We call on everyone who supports Israel to ‘vote leave’ and deal a major blow to this mammoth bureaucracy that has an unhealthy obsession with Israel.”

Briggs warned that “the double standard in which the EU holds Israel, is nothing short of state-sponsored anti-Semitism. We encourage all eligible ex-pats in Israel and elsewhere to make sure they are on the electoral registry before the June 7th deadline to ensure they can vote, all the information needed is provided on our website.”

Categories: BREXIT, Britain, European Union, Israel, Israel and EU, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian schools, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Support for terrorism
Tags: BREXIT, Britain, European Union, Israel, Israel and EU, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian schools, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Support for terrorism

Comments: Be the first to comment

London’s New Muslim Mayor: Extremist or Opportunist?

May 8, 2016

London’s New Muslim Mayor: Extremist or Opportunist? Clarion Project, Meira Svirsky, May 8, 2016

Sadiq-Khan-HP

Sadiq Khan makes his acceptance speech. (Photo: Video screenshot)

Majid Nawaz’s assessment of London’s new Muslim mayor, the newly elected Sadiq Khan, is that he is not an Islamist extremist. He is merely a manipulative politician willing to use guile and duplicity to achieve his electoral aims — not so different from the average politician.

Leading up to the mayoral vote, questions arose about Khan’s association with extremists, which constitutes a long list in the new mayor’s political history.

Consider:

In 2001, Khan was the lawyer for the American radical Islamist group Nation of Islam, successfully arguing in front of the UK’s High Court to overturn the ban on its leader, Louis Farrakhan.
In 2003, Khan appeared at a conference with Sajeel Abu Ibrahim, a member of the banned al-Muhajiroun group that was founded by hate preacher Omar Bakri Muhammad (now prohibited from entering the UK) and led by hate preacher Anjem Choudary (whose many organizations have been said to have contributed “the single biggest gateway to terrorism in recent British history”). Sajeel also ran a terrorist training camp in Pakistan attended by 7/7 bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan.
In 2004, Khan testified to the House of Commons as head of the Muslim Council of Britain’s legal affairs committee. As council legal head, Khan argued in parliament that the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader Yusuf Al-Qaradawi “is not the extremist that he is painted as being.” Qaradawi (also banned in the UK for his extremist views) advocates, among other sharia principles, for wife beating and suicide bombings against Israeli citizens. After the murder of an Ahmadi Muslim in Scotland for wishing his Christian customers a peaceful Easter, the council “condemned” the incident by pointing out that Ahmadis are not Muslims.
Khan was the defense lawyer for Zacarias Moussaoui, a 9/11 terrorist and confessed member of Al Qaeda.
Khan attended events for the extremist group CAGE and wrote a forward for one of their reports. CAGE is a primary supporter of the Islamic State executioner known as “Jihadi John,” who they described as a “beautiful young man.”
Khan appeared on panels with Muslim community leader and cleric Suliman Gani, a supporter of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), no less than nine times.
In 2010, Khan shamelessly played the Ahmadi card, flaring up sectarian hatred in his reelection bid to the parliament when faced with stiff competition from Nasser Butt, an Ahmadi who had opposed the war in Iraq unlike Khan who had voted in favor of it.

Defending himself against charges of extremism, Khan points to his record on supporting rights for homosexual and transsexual rights. Since he was first elected to parliament in 2005, that support has been unwavering.

Khan has been an outspoken critic of anti-Semitism. Most recently, he stated he was “embarrassed and sorrowful” about the glaring anti-Semitism that has been spotlighted in his own party.

As the Muslim Public Affairs Committee in the UK (MPAC-UK) derogatorily pointed out in a comment piece on their website posted just two days before the election, “A Vote for Sadiq Khan in the London Mayor Elections is a Vote for Israel.”

Much to MPAC-UK’s chagrin and dismay, Khan is an opponent of the anti-Israel BDS movement. Although he called for sanctions against Israel in 2009, he says he has since changed his mind.

On the last day of his campaign, it was revealed that in an interview Khan gave in 2009 on Iranian television, he referred to Muslims fighting extremism as “Uncle Toms.” (He has since apologized.)

Still, Majid Nawaz insists that Khan is no extremist. Khan was Nawaz’s lawyer when he was arrested in Egypt for working for the banned Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Nawaz, now a prominent counter extremism campaigner, says he is forever indebted to Khan for visiting him in Egypt’s Mazra Tora prison, “while the world gave up on me.”

Ironically, it was Nawaz’s counter-extremism foundation Quilliam that were targeted by Khan in his “Uncle Tom” remarks.

Nawaz refrained from commenting on Khan and his electoral bid until after the election. In his first piece penned after the election, Nawaz paints a picture of Khan as a realist (read: opportunistic) and consummate politician.

“When push comes to shove, gaining power becomes more important for politicians from all parties, than defending principles,” writes Nawaz. “And sadly, extremists remain among the most powerful organized forces in Britain’s Muslim grassroots.”

Nawaz explains the unfortunate political climate in today’s Britain: “By 2009, extremism had grown so rife among my own British Muslim community that, in a sign of our times, a Muslim government minister for Social Cohesion [Khan] would find it politically expedient to call a group of Muslims, who were not in government, ‘Uncle Toms’ simply for criticizing extremism.”

Yet, Nawaz doesn’t give Khan a free pass, saying, “It did not need to be like this. As a column in the Wall Street Journal recently noted, ‘Other Muslim leaders took a different approach.’

“The struggles that reforming liberal and ex-Muslims face every day, the dehumanization, the delegitimization, the excommunication, the outcasting, the threats, intimidation and the violence makes this inexcusable … Why is it okay for a mayor to have shared panels with all manner of Muslim extremists, while actively distancing himself from, and smearing, counter-extremist Muslims?”

A good question it would behoove the new mayor to answer.

Categories: Britain, Islam, Muslim mayor of London
Tags: Britain, Islam, Muslim mayor of London

Comments: 1 Comment

Op-Ed: Britain’s Labour Party and the sunny side of Adolph Hitler

May 7, 2016

Op-Ed: Britain’s Labour Party and the sunny side of Adolph Hitler, Israel National News, Jack Engelhard, May 6, 2016

Suddenly, Hitler is back in the picture, and quite popular too.

If you’ve been following the news trending from Britain’s Labour Party, you know that’s where anti-Semitism has been making a comeback with a vengeance, if it ever left, and where some 50 Labour members have been suspended and others have been censured for tasteless remarks against Jews and/or the Jewish State.

All that, but they can’t seem to suspend anti-Semitism.

Several of these rascals have been named, including the lady who forcefully suggested that Israel ought to be cleansed of Jews and moved to the United States. Quite a few of these names sound foreign and nothing like what we’ve been used to over the centuries, like Winston, Clive and Ken.

Instead, Mohammed ranks near the top for names given to newborns in the UK.

Yet the biggest headline comes from the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, who’s been quoted as saying that Hitler was a Zionist.

Dare we call that anti-Semitism – that, plus the resurfaced obsession with Jews in the first place? Well, anti-Semites come in a variety of sizes.

But, as we see, one word fits all.

From my findings I have concluded that there are people who are full-time anti-Semites, they go to bed and wake up like that — and people who are part-time anti-Semites, I call them weekend anti-Semites, acting on the impulse when it’s slow around town and there’s nothing better to do than hate Jews.

That’s when people like Ken Livingstone awaken themselves to the sunny side of Adolph Hitler.

We have them here, too, in the United States, like author Michael Chabon who gets double credits; he is Jewish and a full-time anti-Semite. Impressive!

Back to Britain, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, himself with shaky credentials as a Zionist, says, who me?

He claims that there’s no anti-Semitism going on in his back room worthy of the label.

He wants it defined. Let me try. True, there is no such thing as an official anti-Semite. We trust our instincts when we come across one.

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart explained it like this when he was asked to rule on pornography, “I know it when I see it,” and that is precisely how it works for me when I am asked to pin it down on anti-Semitism. We know who you are, period, and if that sounds too harsh, imagine how we feel when out of the blue we are Topic A all over again.

For what reason? Who knows? Anti-Semites, they know.

Truths is, I never liked using the term and have avoided it as much as possible in my books and columns, first because it is shopworn, overused, too simple, and it is the ultimate putdown. So here, however, is the problem. There is no substitute. An anti-Semite is an anti-Semite and no synonym will do.

I checked the Thesaurus and nothing doing; it keeps sending me back to anti-Semitism, and back to Britain and the rest of Europe.

If I sound touchy about the anti-Semitism roiling Labour this very day, well we’re in a period of remembrance for the Holocaust that wiped out more than half my family, so now is not the best time for keeping a stiff upper lip, which anti-Semites seldom do anyway, being ever so quick to speak freely about their intolerance.

For me, as a novelist, Israel is the perfect love story – the Romance of a Land and its people.

At the moment when Britain’s left – and who knows about the right? – is so busy with the Jews, thank God we have this blessed Land.

We know what anti-Semites can do once they get their hands on us – but now it’s not so easy, is it?

Categories: Antisemitism, Britain
Tags: Antisemitism, Britain

Comments: Be the first to comment

The Great Western Retreat

May 4, 2016

The Great Western Retreat, Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, May 4, 2016

♦ Of all French soldiers currently engaged in military operations, half of them are deployed inside France. And half of those are assigned to protect 717 Jewish schools.

♦ This massive deployment of armed forces in our own cities is a departure from history. It is a moral disarmament, before a military one.

♦ Why does anyone choose to fight in a war? Civilized nations go to war so that members of today’s generation may sacrifice themselves to protect future generations. But if there are no future generations, there is no reason whatever for today’s young men to die in war. It is “demography, stupid.”

On March 11, 2004, 192 people were killed and 1,400 wounded in a series of terrorist attacks in Madrid. Three days later, Spain’s Socialist leader, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, was elected prime minister. Just 24 hours after being sworn in, Zapatero ordered Spanish troops to leave Iraq “as soon as possible.”

The directive was a monumental political victory for extremist Islam. Since then, Europe’s boots on the ground have not been dispatched outside Europe to fight jihadism; instead, they have been deployed inside the European countries to protect monuments and civilians.

“Opération Sentinelle” is the first new large-scale military operation within France. The army is now protecting synagogues, art galleries, schools, newspapers, public offices and underground stations. Of all French soldiers currently engaged in military operations, half of them are deployed inside France. And half of those are assigned to protect 717 Jewish schools. Meanwhile, French paralysis before ISIS is immortalized by the image of police running away from the office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo during the massacre there.

1578

French soldiers guard a Jewish school in Strasbourg, February 2015. (Image source: Claude Truong-Ngoc/Wikimedia Commons)

You can find the same figure in Italy: 11,000 Italian soldiers are currently engaged in military operations and more than half of them are used in operation “Safe Streets,” which, as its name reveals, keeps Italy’s cities safe. Italy’s army is also busy providing aid to migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

In 2003, Italy was one of the very few countries, along with Spain and Britain, which stood with the United States in its noble war in Iraq — a war that was successful until the infamous US pull-out on December 18, 2011.

Today, Italy, like Spain, runs away from its responsibility in the war against the Islamic State. Italy’s Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti ruled out the idea of Italy taking part in action against ISIS, after EU defense ministers unanimously backed a French request for help.

Italy’s soldiers, stationed in front of my newspaper’s office in Rome, provide a semblance of security, but the fact that half of Italy’s soldiers are engaged in domestic security, and not in offensive military strikes, should give us pause. These numbers shed a light not only on Europe’s internal terror frontlines, from the French banlieues to “Londonistan.” These numbers also shed light on the great Western retreat.

US President Barack Obama has boasted that as part of his legacy, he has withdrawn American military forces from the Middle East. His shameful departure from Iraq has been the main reason that the Islamic State rose to power — and the reason Obama postponed a military withdrawal from Afghanistan. This US retreat can only be compared to the fall of Saigon, with the picture of a helicopter evacuating the U.S. embassy.

In Europe, armies are no longer even ready for war. The German army is now useless, and Germany spends only 1.2% of GDP on defense. The German army today has the lowest number of staff at any time in its history.

In 2012, Germany’s highest court, breaking a 67-year-old taboo against using the military within Germany’s borders, allowed the military to be deployed in domestic operations. The post-Hitler nation’s fear that the army could develop again into a state-within-a-state that might impede democracy has paralyzed Europe’s largest and wealthiest country. Last January, it was revealed that German air force reconnaissance jets cannot even fly at night.

Many European states slumber in the same condition as Belgium, with its failed security apparatus. A senior U.S. intelligence officer even recently likened the Belgian security forces to “children.” And Sweden’s commander-in-chief, Sverker Göranson, said his country could only fend off an invasion for a maximum of one week.

During the past ten years, the United Kingdom has also increasingly been seen by its allies — both in the US and in Europe — as a power in retreat, focusing only on its domestic agenda. The British have become increasingly insular – a littler England.

The UK’s armed forces have been downsized; the army alone is expected to shrink from 102,000 soldiers in 2010 to 82,000 by 2020 – its smallest size since the Napoleonic wars. The former head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Nigel Essenigh, has spoken of “uncomfortable similarities” between the UK’s defenses now and those in the early 1930s, during the rise of Nazi Germany.

In Canada, military bases are now being used to host migrants from Middle East. Justin Trudeau, the new Canadian prime minister, first halted military strikes against ISIS, then refused to join the coalition against it. Terrorism has apparently never been a priority for Trudeau — not like “gender equality,” global warming, euthanasia and injustices committed against Canada’s natives.

The bigger question is: Why does anyone choose to fight in a war? Civilized nations go to war so that members of today’s generation may sacrifice themselves to protect future generations. But if there are no future generations, there is no reason whatever for today’s young men to die in war. It is “demography, stupid.”

Spain‘s fertility has fallen the most — the lowest in Western Europe over twenty years and the most extreme demographic spiral observed anywhere. Similarly, fewer babies were born in Italy in 2015 than in any year since the state was founded 154 years ago. For the first time in three decades, Italy’s population shrank. Germany, likewise, is experiencing a demographic suicide.

This massive deployment of armed forces in our own cities is a departure from history. It is a moral disarmament, before a military one. It is Europe’s new Weimar moment, from the name of the first German Republic that was dramatically dismantled by the rise of Nazism. The Weimar Republic still represents a cultural muddle, a masterpiece of unarmed democracy devoted to a mutilated pacifism, a mixture of naïve cultural, political reformism and the first highly developed welfare state.

According to the historian Walter Laqueur, Weimar was the first case of the “life and death of a permissive society.” Will Europe’s new Weimar also be brought down, this time by Islamists?

Categories: Britain, Canada, Europe, European military, Foreign policy, Islam and Jews, Islamic invasion, Islamic State, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation, Leftists, Military force, Multiculturalism, national security
Tags: Britain, Canada, Europe, European military, Foreign Policy, Islam and Jews, Islamic invasion, Islamic State, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation, Leftists, Military force, Multiculturalism, national security

Comments: Be the first to comment

Britain’s “Routine and Commonplace” Anti-Semitism

May 2, 2016

Britain’s “Routine and Commonplace” Anti-Semitism, Gatestone Institute, Richard Kemp and Jasper Reid, May 2, 2016

♦ Each of these politicians accused of anti-Semitism was voted into power by an electorate who knew exactly what their views were. Had they not held these views, they would not have been elected.

♦ “Anti-Semitism isn’t just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it’s routine and commonplace.” — Mehdi Hasan, British Muslim political journalist.

♦ The consequences of Western politicians’ continued weakness and appeasement are far greater than encouraging anti-Semitism and undermining the State of Israel. It is the fatal and irreversible descent of their own countries.

Battle-hardened British soldiers were moved to tears by the horrors they witnessed at the Nazi charnel house of Bergen-Belsen when they liberated the concentration camp in April 1945. Yet seventy years after thousands of troops fought and died to destroy the regime that murdered six million Jews, the scourge of anti-Semitism is again on the march across Europe.

In just one week, a British student leader, a Labour Party constituency MP, a London council leader, a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee and even Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn have all been accused of being mired in Jew-hatred.

It is the tip of the iceberg. Each of these people was voted into power by an electorate that knew exactly what their views were. Had they not held these views they would not have been elected.

All are on the political left, but the problem does not stop there. The cancer of Jew-hatred today spreads from right to left throughout European nations and in all supranational bodies including the European Union and the United Nations. It is led by politicians, human rights groups and the media, whose contorted worldview has contaminated ordinary people on a scale unimaginable possibly even to the arch-propagandist Dr. Josef Goebbels himself.

1575

Seventy years after thousands of British troops fought and died to destroy the regime that murdered six million Jews, the scourge of anti-Semitism is again on the march. Left: A British soldier talks to an emaciated prisoner after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen in April 1945. Right: An anti-Israel protestor in London holds up a sign saying “Hitler you were right,” in July 2014.

In the 21st Century, outside the Middle East, it is hard to express hatred of Jews publicly. So Jew-haters everywhere have adopted a proxy: the Jewish state. Israel is the acceptable target of their hate. That is why Labour MP Naz Shah’s “solution,” with chilling echoes of Reinhard Heydrich, was to “transport” all the Jews out of Israel, with the obvious implication that this would be done forcibly and violently.

It is why National Union of Students President Malia Bouattia advocated violence against Israel and accused the international media of being “Zionist-led.” It is why Muhammed Butt, a London Labour council leader, shared a Facebook post denouncing Israel as “a terrorist state like ISIS.” It is why former London Mayor and Labour National Executive member Ken Livingstone sought to discredit Zionism by his assertion that Hitler supported it.

Where does all this hatred come from? Its long lineage begins with the Muslim prophet Muhammed and its modern form pre-dates Hitler. Back in the 1920s and 30s, murderous Arab gangs attacked Jewish communities in post-Ottoman, British Mandated Palestine and tried to drive them into the sea. They were stopped by Britain’s Captain Orde Wingate, who taught the Jews to defend themselves, fighting alongside British troops.

A few years later Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, made a deal with Hitler to bring the final solution to the Middle East, but the German advance was halted in its tracks at El Alamein by General Montgomery’s Eighth Army. As soon as the State of Israel was established, 68 years ago this month, by resolution of the United Nations, five Arab armies fell on her with the intent of annihilation. They failed, and ever since have been trying to destroy the Jewish state by military assault and terrorism in all its forms.

Recognizing their collective inability to eliminate Jews from their historic homeland by force, the Arabs have waged a pernicious and all-pervading propaganda war to demonize the Jewish State. Their lies have included the blatant falsehoods that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are illegal under international law; that the Israeli government operates an oppressive apartheid state; that the IDF is strangling Gaza under an unprovoked and illegal siege; that successive Israeli administrations have been the sole obstacle to peace in the Middle East; and that Israeli security forces deliberately murder innocent Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Understanding that the might of the pen is magnified by the flash of the sword, the Palestinian leadership and their Iranian paymasters have frequently used violence to seize international attention. Provoking the Israelis into killing Palestinian people to ensure global condemnation was the true purpose behind the Gaza rocket wars and the recent wave of murderous knife attacks and car-rammings.

Why does the West pander to this religiously inspired hatred and bigotry? There are three fundamental reasons. First, Europe especially is consumed by imperial guilt. Those that are seen to have been historically oppressed and exploited can today do no wrong; Westerners must prostrate themselves at their feet.

Second, every European country depends on Arab oil for its continued existence and relishes the return of its petrodollars through arms sales and massive investment into their economies.

Third, Western governments understand the power of their ever-increasing Islamic populations. They fear the extremism of those who reject Western values and want to violently replace them with the ways of Islamic sharia law. And they calculate the mathematics of the Muslim vote at the ballot box.

They know that among these communities there is widespread and innate hatred of Jews and of Israel. Mehdi Hasan, a British Muslim political journalist, has confirmed: “anti-Semitism isn’t just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it’s routine and commonplace.” Our politicians believe that by appeasement they will satiate the blood lust of the jihadists and gain the support of Muslim voters.

This is why we see Western leaders condemning Israel for insufficient restraint while defending itself from lethal Hamas rockets, when they know full well Israel has done all it can to avoid civilian deaths. It is why not one single EU member state had the courage to vote against the false condemnation of Israel for war crimes in the UN Human Rights Council last year. It is why the British government unequivocally asserts that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal when it knows they are not. It is why Prime Minister David Cameron, a friend and supporter of the Jewish state, accused Israel of turning the Gaza Strip into a ‘prison camp’ when he knew it had not.

These false and malicious condemnations fuel hatred of Israel and of Jewish people everywhere. They are driven and intensified by a media that is dominated by strident, virulent and unyielding anti-Israel bias.

What of the future? Imperial guilt in Europe shows no sign of diminishing. In fact, the ideology behind it is gaining strength as the EU seeks to undermine national identity in its drive for ever-closer union and the creation of a superstate.

Despite developing energy technologies, there is no prospect of significantly reduced dependence on Middle Eastern oil in the foreseeable future. And with the vast influx of refugees from Muslim countries into Europe, the urge to appease their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel attitudes can only increase dramatically.

This means Israel and the Jews are going to come under even more intolerable pressure, leading to a greater exodus of Jews from many Western nations and the increasing international isolation of the Jewish state.

But there is an alternative. It is that Western political leaders find the courage to reject the virulent anti-Israel prejudice. To speak what they know to be the truth about the situation in the Middle East. To stop encouraging Palestinian leaders to believe their campaign against Israel is going to achieve its goal of destroying the Jewish state. And rather than supporting Palestinian hate with Western dollars, to impose sanctions against their racist and destructive behaviour.

The consequences of Western politicians’ continued weakness and appeasement are far greater than encouraging anti-Semitism and undermining the State of Israel. It is the fatal and irreversible descent of their own countries. By allowing this anti-Semitic hatred, they are betraying the millions of citizens who have fought and died to oppose the sort of malevolent ideologies that are now incubating it.

Categories: Antisemitism, Arab nations, Britain, Europe, Foreign policy, History, Islam and Jews, Israel, Israel and Europe, Palestinians, United Nations
Tags: Antisemitism, Arab nations, Britain, Europe, Foreign Policy, History, Islam and Jews, Israel, Israel and Europe, Palestinians, United Nations

Comments: Be the first to comment

Britain? Moderates? How’s That Again?

April 30, 2016

Britain? Moderates? How’s That Again? Gatestone Institute, Douglas Murray, April 30, 2016

♦ A new poll of British Muslims found that a majority hold views with which most British people would disagree. For instance, 52% of British Muslims think that homosexuality should be made illegal. An earlier poll found that 27% of British Muslims have “some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks” at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last year.

♦ Whenever opinion poll results come out, nearly the entire Muslim community, including nearly all Muslims in the media and all self-appointed groups of “Muslim community leaders” try to prove that the poll is a fraud.

♦ If I had always known my “community” harboured such views, and a poll revealing this truth came out, I would be deeply ashamed. But when such polls emerge about the opinions of British Muslims, is that there is never any hint of introspection. There is no shame and no concern, only attack.

♦ If there were indeed a “moderate majority,” when a poll comes out saying that a quarter of your community wants fundamentally to alter the law of the land and live under Sharia, the other 75% would spend their time trying to change the opinions of that quarter. Instead, about 74% of the 75% not in favour of sharia spend their time covering for the 25% and attacking the polling company which discovered them.

One often hears about the “moderate Muslim majority.” ‘After any terrorist attack, politicians tell us that, “The moderate majority of Muslims utterly condemn this.” After any outrage, commentators and pundits spring up to say, “Of course the vast majority of Muslims are moderate.” But is it true? Are the vast majority of Muslims really “moderate”?

A number of factors suggest perhaps not — most obviously the problem repeatedly revealed by opinion polls. Time and again, the results of opinion polls in the Western world, never mind in the Middle East or North Africa, show a quite different picture from the “moderate majority” aquatint.

True, such polls can often show that, for instance, only 27% of British Muslims have “some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks” at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last year. True, that is only between a quarter and a third of British Muslims sympathizing with the blasphemy enforcement squad. On other occasions, such as recently in Britain with a new ICM poll commissioned by Channel 4, they find that a majority of Muslims hold views with which most British people would disagree. So for instance, the recent ICM poll found that 52% of British Muslims think that homosexuality should be made illegal. That’s a striking figure. Not 52% of British Muslims saying homosexuality is “not their cup of tea” or that they are “not entirely on board with gay marriage,” but 52% of British Muslims thinking that homosexuality should be made a crime under the law.

But it is what happens after such polls emerge that the “moderate majority” idea really comes under strain. First, of course, there is always an attempt to put a positive spin on the results. So for instance, when the post-Charlie Hebdo poll came out last year, the BBC (which had commissioned the poll) ran it with the headline, “Most British Muslims ‘oppose Muhammad cartoon reprisals.’” Although true, it is not the most striking aspect of its findings. But it is what happens next that is most revealing and more truly calls into question whether we are really dealing with a “moderate majority” or, more truthfully, with a “moderate minority.” Because whenever the results come out, nearly the entire Muslim community, including nearly all Muslims in the media and all self-appointed groups of “Muslim community leaders,” try to prove that the poll is a fraud. It happened with the release of the ICM poll in the UK, as it has happened with every previous poll. With the exception of only one or two prominent dissident Muslims, every Muslim voice in the media and every Muslim group decided not to concern themselves with the ICM findings, but to try to pull apart the validity, methodology and even ‘motives’ of the poll. This is deeply revealing.

It is worth trying a thought-experiment here. Whatever community you come from, imagine your reaction if a poll like the ICM one on British Muslims had come out about whatever community you feel a part of. Imagine you are a Jew and a poll had come out saying the majority of other Jews in your country want to make being gay a crime. What would your first reaction be? My impression is that most Jews would be deeply embarrassed. Very shortly after that first reaction, you might begin to wonder what could be done to change such a terrible statistic around. It is possible, if you knew nobody of your faith who thought that homosexuality should be criminalized and had never come across this position before (or any previous polling which suggested the same thing) that you might question the credibility and methodology of the poll. But otherwise, you would probably sigh and wonder what could be done to improve things. If you knew the findings to be fairly accurate, why would you try to tear apart the findings?

Likewise, if tomorrow a poll were published of the opinions of white British people of Christian upbringing in the UK, I would take some interest in it. If it revealed that 39% of British Christians believed that wives should always obey their husbands (as the ICM poll showed British Muslims believe) then I would have some worries. If it also found that almost a quarter (23%) of British people of Christian origin wanted areas of the UK to divest themselves of the law of the land and be run instead on some Biblical literalist “take” on the law, I would worry some more.

Of course, neither of these eventualities is remotely likely to arise. But let us say that it did. What would be my reaction? The first would be to hang my head in shame. And I would hang it just that bit lower if the findings came as absolutely no surprise to me. If I had always known my “community” harboured such views, and a poll revealing this truth came out, I would be deeply ashamed that what I had always known was now known by everyone else in the country.

What is most interesting then, when such polls emerge about the opinions of British Muslims, is that there is never, ever, any hint of such introspection. There is no shame and no concern, only attack. If there were indeed a “moderate majority,” then when a poll comes out saying that a quarter of your community wants fundamentally to alter the law of the land and live under Sharia law, the other 75% would spend their time trying to change the opinions of that quarter. Instead, about 74% of the 75% not in favour of sharia spend their time covering for the 25% and attacking the polling company which discovered them. It is a tiny symptom of a much larger problem, the repercussions of which our societies have hardly begun to face.

1568

Categories: Britain, Islam and human rights, Islamic integration, Islamic tolerance, Islamisation, Moderate Muslims, Sharia law
Tags: Britain, Islam and human rights, Islamic integration, Islamic tolerance, Islamisation, Moderate Muslims, Sharia law

Comments: 1 Comment

Archives